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“Return to Home Port”

KRYMFASH
Ayder Muzhdabaev
March 12, 2015

The other day, colleagues from several foreign media asked me to help them find ordinary people in Crimea willing to talk on camera about what their lives were like a year after Krymnash [Russia’s annexation of the peninsula].

Just about their lives, not about politics.

With Muscovite ease, I promised to help them out. And…

…it was not just that none of my many relatives and friends (except journalists) were willing to appear on TV, NO ONE even wanted to meet off the record with foreigners.

Their first argument was that foreigners would be followed, and at best a person who met with them would be dragged into the FSB for questioning, and at worst … You never know what.

Given that, over the past year, nine Crimean Tatars have disappeared without a trace, one was brutally murdered after being abducted, several people have been deported, several have been placed under arrest, and hundreds have been sentenced to hefty fines, I did not even bother trying to change their minds.

Two hours ago, the FSB detained our colleague Natalya Kokorin, a journalist for Slіdstvo.Іnfo and the Center for Journalistic Investigations. Intelligent and beautiful, Natasha has written many investigative reports about the redistribution of Crimean property, corruption, gangsters in power, and the Russian occupation. She and her colleagues have had to do many of their articles almost clandestinely. Today, the authorities began a search at her parents’ house when Natalya arrived there, and four FSB officers took her to their headquarters. The “Russian World” has quickly achieved victory in Crimea. A journalist who exposes the regime is a real threat to the federal and local ghouls. We are waiting for news from her lawyer and ask that you repost this.

On March 16 at 1:00 p.m. in Moscow, an exhibition of graphic art, Crimea: Return to Home Part, will open with support from the Anti-Maidan Movement and the Russian Bear Movement. The exhibition is dedicated to the anniversary of the referendum in which the residents of Crimea voted to join the Russian Federation.

The exposition in Novopushkinsky Square will feature about fifty works by patriotic cartoonists and graphic designers from the group Politics Today. The exhibition will send visitors back to the memorable events of the Russian Spring in Crimea. The work that will be presented at the exhibition are produced in the graphic design style [sic].

Members of the Night Wolves national motorcycle club and Julia Berezikova, co-chair of the Anti-Maidan Movement, will attend the event.

The exhibition will be held March 16 from 1 to 6 p.m. Admission is free.